I have an interest in childcare so this Opinion piece by Janet Daley caught my eye. She laments the absence of grandparents, and feels guilty herself at pursuing her career instead of offering support to her struggling daughter. Her central question:
Why are educated working women, who are more highly paid than ever before, having to fall back into dependence on extended family arrangements that were once the province of the poor?
Her answer is stupefyingly simple:
One of the more obvious reasons is that the Government has become heavily involved in the business of childcare: turning it into a regulated, licensed industry that must meet inspection standards has made it much more expensive.
And so she’s right. Sort of. My local council produces a handy booklet outlining the approved childminders, their specialities, locations, hours etc. But is all this regulation necessary? Surely in a free market, interested people can offer their services at going rates and parents will learn, through trial and error, who are the good providers.
Unfortunately, Janet is ridden with a memetic cancer that has eaten away her faculties of analysis and left her to bemoan all the ills of the world on ‘regulation’. Amazingly, she provides part of the real answer herself, in the quote above, but let’s go back and examine her claim that regulation is the real evil here.
Firstly I can think of several reasons why grandparents of today, unlike yesteryear, do not indulge in childcare, and why childcare is more expensive.
- Grandparents of today are wealthier and healthier; my in-laws are currently on a 3-week holiday in India. Two years ago they went on a 3-month holiday around the world. The absence of grandparents is more a tale of the greater freedom they have to enjoy their holiday homes, friends, coke habits etc.
- We are wealthier today, because we have a more mobile and flexible workforce, which means we are more likely to move away from our grandparents. My own parents live 300 miles from me, and my mum lives 4000 miles from her parents.
- More women have chosen to work, making us wealth, so as well as reducing the supply of possible childminders, there has been increased demand, both of which would push up prices. As Ms Daley herself points out without realising it, “Why are educated working women, who are more highly paid than ever before…”. There are other opportunities for women today, other than childminding.
Note that 2 above also suggests some of form of regulation; in the sepia-tinted hallucinations of Ms Daley, Miss Marple would have been happy to look after the children while solving crimes in some Arcadian bliss. Today, the shuffling bag of bones in on Upper St. could be a retired judge or dope dealer. Regulations on background checks etc. are there because there is an enormous information gap between buyers and sellers. As in any modern economy, he turgid formality of the law replaces the casual rules of social conduct, in a way that is largely unavoidable.
I would also add that the parents Ms Daley sympathises with have a more precious (=litigous) attitude towards their childrens upbringing today. They are not willing to tolerate the sorts of scrapes and knocks so beloved of the children in Enid Blyton books.
I think a more interesting question is, why is a cleaner, at £8/hour, so much more expensive than a registered childminder, at about £20/day?
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